Advocacy and Outreach

ISSAT’s A&O activities aim to bring about a whole-of-government and whole-of-system approach by its Governing Board Members, facilitate greater coordination, broaden knowledge on security and justice reform lessons, trends and challenges, and encourage the use of good practice across the wider international community.

Capital and Headquarters briefings and security and justice reform sensitisation

ISSAT provides regular briefings at capital and Headquarters level for its Governing Board Members. These are an opportunity to gather important information regarding their needs and programmes, and are an opportunity to provide an update on ISSAT’s services and activities. ISSAT can provide tailored cross-department briefings and workshops that draw on the lessons, tools and networks it has built in the field of security and justice reform. These are an excellent means of facilitating greater coordination. ISSAT is also well placed to provide insight into possible niche areas where a country or institution might best direct its national or multilateral expertise to support the delivery of better security and justice services for communities.

High Level Panels

High Level Panels offer a platform for dialogue for senior government officials, civil society representatives and security and justice practitioners to consider core issues, such as the extent to which international approaches, structures, norms and processes are adapting to keep pace with contemporary sources of insecurity. Previous examples include the 2012 SSR High Level Panel held in Nairobi, as well as the 2014 Africa Forum on Security Sector Reform, held in Addis Ababa. The Africa Forum was developed in partnership with the African Union, European Union, United Nations, the African Security Sector Network and the Government of Slovakia. It focused on the opportunities and challenges of security sector reform as a component of stabilisation and peace-building in Africa.

Governing Board meetings

In addition to providing a mechanism for oversight of ISSAT’s work, ISSAT’s annual Governing Board meetings also offer an opportunity to facilitate greater coordination between bilateral and multilateral Governing Board Members and to discuss trends and challenges to supporting security and justice.

Support to policy development

Governing Board Members can draw on ISSAT to assist them with developing governmental and multilateral policies related to security and justice reform. This can range from facilitation of discussions within the institution, to the provision of technical advice and support to wider sensitisation and consultation activities. For example, ISSAT is currently supporting Norway through a series of workshops to develop its new policy for supporting SSR. ISSAT also supported the African Union to conduct consultation workshops as part of their process to develop the African Union Policy Framework on SSR.

Connecting practitioner communities

There is a growing awareness of the need to better bring together the different practitioner communities working on peace, justice and security related issues. ISSAT is able to provide advice and expertise on how to enhance linkages with security and justice reform. For example, Switzerland requested ISSAT participation at the first international meeting of the Global Action against Mass Atrocity Crimes (GAAMAC), which was held in San José, Costa Rica in March 2014. The aim of the meeting was to convene governments and their national focal points on genocide prevention and Responsibility to Protect (R2P) to discuss good practice, share learning and explore ways to strengthen their commitment at national level.